The Elusive Cherry Lollipop
by ShadowPrincess-Shekailaia
Summary: We've all seen House sucking on his cherry lollipop at least once, right? He get's them from the reception desk all the time. Well, what happens when there are none left? Chaos ensues, of course! Oneshot, funny, and purely strange...


Hey folks, I'm not completely dead yet… I'm just in hibernation. I'll prove that fact to you as I post my most recent story, in my new favorite fandom, House… This is also posted in my livejournal account, moondragonkaga so if you're ever there, feel free to check it out…

_Disclaimer: Don't own, won't own, never will own… I still wish I did though. All I do own is a blatant obsession with the series so don't sue. _

_Claimer: Don't steal, and we might be able to be friends…the story, I mean…_

_And now, Shekailaia presents…_

_**The Elusive Cherry Lollipop**_

When House's final clinic patient for the day--a middle-aged "soccer mom" who smelled of the word "flu"--came walking through the door of Exam Room One, making the proclamation "I think I have cancer.", House knew that this was going to be a very aggravating day.

At first, House tried the uncharacteristic, patient/humoring approach, asking why this woman who looked undeniably healthy with the exception of her red nose(clear indication of one too many rough tissues), and flushed face(obviously fever, House had no idea why he was stuck doing this) thought she had cancer. She replied, telling the infamous doctor that she had recently been more fatigued than usual and bruised more easily.

"Could it be leukemia?" She had asked as soon as she was finished with her hurried and overanxious explanation. House replied by sinking a bit deeper in his seat(kind of hard on a stool) and reaching in his pocket, taking out his well-known orange pill bottle. After a sigh, he opened the bottle and fished out a pill, swallowing it with a practiced flourish.

"Do you work out?" He asked finally, growing bored as of ten minutes ago when the woman walked in.

"Um yeah. Can you tell?" She asked, suddenly prideful at the assumed compliment. Well, I should believe that we all know the fact about assuming...

"Actually, the bruises kind of tell the tale. You have the flu. Take some Day-Quil and start paying attention. If that doesn't work, take this and get some antibiotics." House said, taking out his pen and writing the prescription on the pad, tearing it off.

"But, the bruises?" She asked, a bit hesitant. House handed her the slip of paper, but stopped before getting up and leaving the room.

"Let me see." He said, standing. She rolled up her sleeves ans showed the purple smudges that were under her arms.

"You have the flu. Get some bed rest. Your fatigue, combined with your constant working out--I'm assuming on a stationary bike, considering the rain--you weren't paying attention and fell on the handlebars, not noticing exactly how hard. Now get out of here..." He said, walking toward the door and exiting, leaving behind the woman with a shocked expression on her face.

"Doctor House checks out at 5 o'clock. Please write that down." He said, dropping the file on the table hurriedly as if it carried some sort of disease...common, boring disease, that is.

"House, it's only 4:45." Brenda said, her pen inches from scratching the paper.

"I'm taking my break a bit late today...you know. So many patients, so little time." He replied, reaching for the lollipop jar near the corner of the desk.

"You've seen two patients in the last three hours." She deadpanned.

"Complicated cases, had to do a full range of difficult tests on them...you know, complicated doctor stuff. Bye!" He said, limping toward the elevators. He raised his hand, ready to pull the sucker from its wrapper when he noticed the color...Orange.

Some part of him heard the elevator ding and the doors opening, but he wasn't paying attention. He quickly limped back to the desk and started looking for his favorite flavor of lollipop...and finding none.

He looked to the specific piece of candy in his hand, and nearly flung it back into the jar in disgust. He had had a bad experience with citrus fruits in the past and would now go nowhere near them. He looked through the jar with more fervor now, searching desperately for the bright red indicator of his favorite cherry candy.

Yellow? Wasn't that lemon? No. He quickly sorted through all of those. Citrus fruits gave him the jitters...

More orange...no. Finding nothing but an abundance of the brightly colored citrus, he grabbed the entire jar, overturning it and causing the entire reception desk to be littered with white sticks and their assorted color-candies. He started sorting through them a little more organized now, ignoring the strange looks that came his way.

A little girl that was feet from him looked up at him in expectation for a lollipop of her own. Her mother looked on in disappointment, wondering why a man was sorting through the candies with a near obsessive attitude.

But still House sorted and looked. He held up a purple colored candy. What was that one again? Grape? That wouldn't do at all. He was allergic to the artificial flavor(highly unlikely, but it _is_ possible.) He tossed it in his "rejected" pile and went on to searching.

Next he held up a green. He looked at it and scrutinized it as if it were a specific MRI film that might have some sort of problem. What was that...Lime? Apple? Close enough to citrus. He threw it out. Soon enough, he realized that he had no more lollipops to sort through and he was still short of his cherry fixation. He huffed in disappointment and was ready to complain, but figured that no one would listen to him anyway and moved on to the elevators.

"Um...House? Do we have a case yet?" He heard a voice behind him as he bent down to search below the sink of the diagnostics lounge for anything that might classify as a cherry lollipop. He noticed the high pitch and figured it was Cameron. He still ignored her in sight of his own search. Finding nothing to his liking, besides perhaps a bit of misplaced mold(That was a health risk! He was going to maintenance about that...), he straightened and looked around him. Still finding nothing, he turned to his team, who was looking on to his antics with one of those "That's-House-for-you" looks.

"Anyone know where the suckers are?" He asked. Foreman raised his eyebrows at that and Chase had a puzzling look on his face. Cameron just sighed, as if she might have been expecting this.

"House? We don't have lollipops in here. You keep saying something about them being stuck in the carpet." Foreman replied.

"True, but only because Chase keeps putting them there...he can't find a proper oral fixation...start smoking, that always works..." He replied, walking toward Cameron's desk in hopes of finding something there.

Chase went to the chair by the lounge table and pulled something out of his pocket, tossing it to House. House, noticing it out of the corner of his eye, caught it just in time. He looked onto the label with a raised eyebrow.

"Flavored toothpicks? What is this?" He asked, wrinkling his nose at the small plastic box.

"Just try one." Chase said. Against his better judgment, House opened the tic-tac-like container and pulled out a stick, putting it between his teeth and started chewing on it. (He could only hope that it was what he was supposed to do with the darned thing.) Moments later, he hopped to the nearby trash can and spat the minty abomination out.

"What the hell was that? You can have the damned thing." He said, throwing the thing back to Chase. Chase, who wasn't expecting it quite so quickly, had it bounce off his forehead before being able to catch it. When he looked up, House had already left, the door swinging shut in his wake.

"Ow." Chase moaned, rubbing his forehead.

"Um...House?" 

"Yeah?" He replied, not really paying attention.

"Is there any specific reason why you're in my office? In case you haven't noticed, I have a patient." At that, House raised his head, looking with an inattentive gaze to Wilson and his next Cancer Kid...who wasn't really a kid, at 21 anyway.

House blinked, and then went back to his futile search, not caring at all... At the resulting silence, he raised his head again, turning to the duo in the center of the room. He waved a hand, as if to say "Continue". In case the message didn't get through though, he did say it.

"Continue. Really, I don't mind." He said, returning to his examination of Wilson's candy jar(when did he get one of those?).

"Well, House, I do. So if you wouldn't mind, could you please leave?" Wilson asked, making sure his annoyance was heard in his voice. House looked up and gazed pointedly at Wilson at that. After a moment of silence between them, House stood up, turning to the door.

"Fine. You don't have what I'm looking for anyway." House said, opening the door and leaving without another word. Wilson looked on, confused, before realizing that he had a patient. With a motion of clearing his throat, the colon cancer patient managed to regain his doctor's attention. They resumed their meeting as if nothing had happened.

"Yes, I understand your concern, but there's nothing much I can...House? I'm in the middle of a meeting!" The screeching voice of Cuddy said as the "limping twerp" walked into her office, causing her companion--more than likely a benefactor of some sort--to turn and face the newcomer.

"No time. I have to look for something." He said, gazing throughout the room and finally finding Cuddy's candy jar on the edge of her desk. (Seriously! How does everyone conveniently have a candy jar of some sort now?)

As he searched, Cuddy looked from him, to her meeting partner, and back, wondering what brought on this madness. 

"Excuse me." She said to her colleague, turning back to House and following what he was doing, which was overturning her jar and sorting desperately through it for some sort of red-candy-on-a-stick. (Notice how I ran out of ways to say "lollipop"?) Finding nothing, he stood and limped out, completely oblivious to the confusion he left behind as well as the still-overturned jar of candy spilling over half of her desk. As the man--Cuddy believed he introduced himself as "Rick"--reached for one of the closer mints, they resumed their meeting without another glance to the door.

As House entered the lobby again, he found himself puzzled as to where to go next. he had already gone to his office, where Foreman, had so rightly pointed out that they kept no lollipops. House would rather mooch off the rest of the hospital, though in light of recent events, he thought about complaining to Cuddy about it. Wilson's office showed no result. He was even so desperate to check the Cardiology, Gynecology, and even the Psyche Ward departments with still no result. Cuddy's office proved no end to his search, but only exposed House to yet another low-cut blouse.

He looked around the lobby again, planning his next course of action, when he found a nurse refilling the candy jar. At the top was a nice, perfectly-wrapped cherry lollipop. Eureka!

House limped in triumph for his prize. He reached for the jar again, finally reveling in the..._ORANGE?!?!_ He looked back to the jar and found that his lollipop was gone! What the hell? He heard the crinkling of a candy wrapper and looked down to see the same six-year-old that witnessed his first search in possession of _his_ cherry lollipop!

Before House could protest this unexpected change of possession, the girl popped the sucker in her mouth and turned away with her mom toward the outside doors. House looked on in dismay, noticing with even more disappointment that the cherry lollipop that the girl had was the last one! Sighing deeply, House turned away and limped toward the elevators, making his way back to his office, his vast search ending in vain.

Maybe he could steal one of those flavored toothpicks from Chase...they weren't _that_ bad after all...

**Fin**


End file.
